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The president’s “enemy” rhetoric and the pressPosted on April 13, 2017

(Editor’s Note: The analysis by Ohio State University Moritz College of Law graduate Dr.RonNell Anderson Jones, has been getting a lot of attention this week in the media. Jones is a law professor at the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law and co-authored the paper with Dr. Lisa Grow Sun.)

President Trump’s declarations that the press is the “enemy of the American people,” accompanied by overt hostile acts, are not merely different in degree but different in kind from the tensions and antagonisms with the media that have punctuated many previous presidencies, according to two Utah law professors.

Professor RonNell Andersen Jones

RonNell Andersen Jones of the University of Utah’s S.J. Quinney College of Law and Lisa Grow Sun of Brigham Young University’s J. Reuben Clark Law School argue in a new paper that Trump has engaged in classic “Schmittian” enemy construction that diminishes the watchdog, educator and proxy functions of the press. In the process, Trump undermines American democracy and jeopardizes the media’s ability to act as an obstacle to the creation of other enemies — such as the judiciary, the intelligence community, people of certain races, immigrants and refugees.

The article by Jones and Sun has been accepted for publication in the winter issue of Arizona State Law Journal and is available now on the Social Science Research Network. Jones and Sun also are among a small group of scholars invited by the University of Illinois College of Law to participate in a special online law review symposium marking President Trump’s first 100 days in office at the end of April. The paper, titled “Enemy Construction and the Press,” also will be the plenary program at the Yale Freedom of Expressions Scholars Conference on April 29.

“Many presidents have, of course, had conflicts with the press. But we think the evidence is overwhelming that Trump is engaged in something more substantial and more troubling than his predecessors,” Jones said. “Because he appears to be on the path toward eliminating important protections for the press, we think this issue absolutely demands careful public attention.”

The authors say Trump’s dealings with the press can be mapped “remarkably neatly” onto enemy construction principles outlined by German political theorist Carl Schmitt (1888-1985). Schmitt’s ideas express the zeitgeist of the creeping national-security exceptionalism that characterized much of the Cold War and that has deepened in many quarters since 9/11.

“In the things he says, the things he does, and the things he forecasts, Trump is consistently and unrelentingly delineating the press as an enemy — an ‘other’ that threatens the political unity of the state and that ought to be distrusted, countered, and perhaps ultimately stripped of ordinarily observed rights and liberties because of this exceptional status,” the authors say.

They use Trump’s words and behavior during his campaign and since taking office to illustrate the ways he has sought to frame, delegitimize and undercut the press. That ranges from verbally attacking individual reporters and media outlets to denying access to or refusing questions at press conferences and making claims that align media interests with those of terrorists.

Trump, a prolific user of Twitter, makes many of his comments on social media. He appears to have made the calculation that the press is no longer a necessary go-between to the citizenry, Jones and Sun say.

President Trump’s rhetoric positioning the press as an “enemy of the American people” comes at a time when the media is weakened by dwindling financial support and reputation, making it more vulnerable to attack, they point out.

It also may further other agendas, such as defining and unifying a political community and potential allies by refocusing discussion away from divisive social problems and internal conflicts; creating a litmus test for other potential allies and enemies; and providing convenient scapegoats for existing social problems or future policy failures.

If President Trump’s campaign to establish the press as an ‘enemy of the American people’ proves persuasive, that success may open the door to arguments that the security of the country justifies — or even requires — limitations on press freedoms and press access, Jones and Sun say.

“The press is an important institution that is absolutely central to our democracy,” Jones said. “It’s easy to lose sight of how much the media does for us, but it is mostly because of the work of journalists that all of the rest of us are able to see what our government is up to and keep our elected officials accountable.”

In less than two weeks, 21 journalists from around the globe will arrive in Columbus, Ohio and Ohio State University to take part in the 44th annual Kiplinger Fellowship Week. Kip Camp is April 22-28.

This year’s Fellows hail from such faraway places as Afghanistan, Singapore, Australia, Spain and Alaska, as well as little, old Yellow Spring, Ohio, a short drive to OSU. We have representatives from HBO, Agence France-Presse, as well at the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Associated Press and media outlets from Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Houston, Seattle, Phoenix, Denver, Toronto and Portland, Oregon.

The Fellows will spend a day at the Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in Athens and also be the guests of honor at a dinner hosted by Experience Columbus. A closing reception is slated for Thursday at the Longaberger Alumni House when the Fellows will meet with local journalists and community leaders.

Reprinted with permission by Nikolia Apostolou. This story appeared in USAToday, Nov. 15, 2016.

ATHENS — When President Obama stood in the shadows of Acropolis and talked about the crippling impact of austerity measures on Greece, I thought, wow, I could have told you that.

After all, my grandparents were collateral damage. And my father is next.
My grandparents’ story starts five decades ago — like thousands of Greeks who left the country in the 1950s and ’60s to find work after the devastating Greek civil war, my grandparents went to Brazil.

In Brazil, they worked hard and eventually opened a coffee shop and a clothing store. They were doing well but didn’t want to stay there forever. After seven years, they moved back to Greece.

Debt, not Trump, is focus of Obama’s talks in Greece

In Athens, Grandpa sold children’s toys from a stand in Omonia Square, until he found a job selling watches and clothing in a shop. By the 1970s, my grandparents had earned enough to become their own bosses again, opening a small coffee shop near the Acropolis.

Grandpa paid his pension contributions. According to the law at the time, he couldn’t cover his wife, so Grandma never had her own pension. When they reached their mid-60s and closed their café to retire in the early 1990s, they lived off his benefits.

In the beginning it was OK. They didn’t travel much. Nor did they eat out.

Then, in the mid-1990s, like thousands of Greeks, Grandpa decided to invest some of his savings in the Athens stock market. Politicians were urging Greeks to invest and take advantage of the growing economy. Stockbroker offices opened up in neighborhoods and villages throughout the country.

Nikolia Apostolu with a Syrian refugee child. Apostolu has been covering the Greek financial crisis and the Syrian refugee plight for more than two years now.

It was a heady time that turned into a frenzy. People sold their houses to play the stock market. Then in 1999, the bubble burst. Millions of people lost money, and the public pension funds went into the red. Allegations of fraud and insider trading were rampant. But nobody was charged with misdoings.

In 2001 when Greece adopted the euro, we were excited, though we thought the currency exchange wasn’t equal. Why should 1 euro have to be 340 drachmas, while 1 euro was 0.5 German marks? We weren’t economists.

Before the euro, a newspaper would cost 100 drachmas, or 30 euro cents, the U.S. equivalent of 33 cents. After the euro, the paper cost 1 euro, or $1.12. The same happened with potatoes, tomatoes and so on. We didn’t need to be economists to see the consequences of bringing together widely disparate economies adopting a single currency as part of the eurozone.

Grandpa, a proud man, never complained to me. But his habits slowly changed. He started attending anti-government protests. While watching the news, he’d curse the government.

He also stopped buying newspapers. That was something I couldn’t accept. A man who had worked for more than 45 years wasn’t able to afford a newspaper anymore. From then on, I’d always bring him a paper so he could indulge in one of his few pleasures.

In 2004, Grandpa was diagnosed with four brain tumors. A week later, we watched the Athens Olympics together. We wondered how much the spectacle cost taxpayers. Such an extravaganza seemed out of place in a small, troubled country like Greece.

More than $11 billion was spent on stadiums that now sit unused. Other funding went to much-needed infrastructure, however, like the subway and a new Athens airport.

A few months after the impressive opening ceremony, my grandfather passed away in his bed, surrounded by family. Grandma moved to an apartment across the street from my parents. She received 80% of her late husband’s pension and could just make ends meet.

Since the Greek fiscal crisis a few years ago, my grandma had been afraid the government would cut her pension. We dismissed her worries, assuring her that she received one of the lowest pensions in the country. Nobody would dare touch it, we said.

Twenty-one veteran journalists from newsrooms around the globe will make up the 2017 class of Kiplinger Fellows at Ohio State University.

The 2017 class includes national, large-market television and radio anchors and producers, leadership at three wire services, reporters from major daily newspapers as well as general assignment reporters from thriving community publications.

Six fellows will visit from outside the United States, hailing from Canada, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Spain, Australia and Afghanistan.

Nearly 500 journalists applied for the fellowship program, which will take place April 23 – 28 at the Ohio State campus in Columbus and the Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University in Athens.

“This year’s pool of applicants continues to signal to the Kiplinger Program that we are a much sought-after fellowship,” deputy director Kevin Z. Smith said. “We continue to be amazed at the caliber of journalists, domestic and foreign, who apply. It’s always a difficult and lengthy process to select the few who come. Each year’s class is unique and well representative of today’s journalism profession.”

Smith said the goal is to return the Kiplinger Fellows to their newsrooms armed with a new set of digital skills and the motivation to train others and improve the level of journalism.

The international 2017 Kiplinger Fellows are:

Anuj Chopra, Agence France-Presse, Kabul, Afghanistan

Eduardo Fernandez Diaz, El Mundo TV, Madrid, Spain

Stephanie Gomez, El Vocero, Puerto Rico

Nelissa Hernandez, Publicitas Content, Singapore

Declan Hill, The Star, Toronto, Canada

Lauren Novak, News Corp, Adelaide, Australia

The U.S. 2017 Kiplinger Fellows are:

Michelle Theriault Boots, Alaska Dispatch News, Anchorage

Deblina Chakraborty, Scripps-KMGH, Denver

Joe Danborn, The Associated Press, Denver

Monica Davey, The New York Times, Chicago

Kate Giammarise, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Dalia Hatuqa, freelancer, Chevy Chase, Maryland

Andy Hurst, KUOW Public Radio, Seattle

Kyle Iboshi, KGW, Portland, Oregon

Jess Mador, NPR-WYSO, Yellow Springs, Ohio

Samantha Melamed, Philadelphia Inquirer

JP Olsen, HBO, New York City

Lee Powell, Washington Post, DC

Claudio Remeseira, Dow Jones, New York City

Fernanda Santos, The New York Times, Phoenix

Larry Seward, KHOU, Houston

The Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism is in its 44th year at Ohio State. It has evolved since its founding, transitioning from a nine-month master’s program to a digital media fellowships in 2011. In addition to the weeklong fellowship, the program offers workshops and training across the globe. In 2016, the Kiplinger Program training reached nearly 1,800 journalists. Full information about the Kiplinger Program is available at www.kiplingerprogram.org.

The Kiplinger Program was endowed at Ohio State in 1973 by Austin Kiplinger in honor of his father, W.M. Kiplinger, one of the university’s first journalism graduates in 1912. W.M. Kiplinger pioneered a new kind of journalism when he became publisher of The Kiplinger Letter and later Kiplinger’s Personal Finance. He has been described by his son as “a dedicated journalist, a muckraker and an inspiration to young journalists… a very original thinker.”

The photo on the front of the Jamaican Gleaner was a shocking precursor to the inside, double-page spread. A mother, gripped in agony at her son’s funeral, greeted the reading public that morning.

The memorial service played out inside the daily tabloid with full-color, up-close-and-personal photos that included the minister, the casket procession and more tear-streaked faces of family and friends. It was not what someone of an American readership would expect.

This funeral seemed to be a galvanizing moment for a nation that sports the fifth highest homicide rate in the world. Fourteen-year-old Nicholas Francis was stabbed to death in Mid-October over his cell phone in a very public display of a senseless murder. The media made its presence felt at every chance, both in print and on the airwaves, culminating now with his funeral.

As much as the people of Jamaica have grown weary of the violence, they have also shown an evaporating tolerance for the media’s portrayal of the violence and its aftermath, like this funeral. They’ve dubbed this gawking “grief porn.”

Why must the victims and the family be showcased on the pages of the paper? Why must every death be complete with blood pools and explicit details of the deaths? Why does the public need to be guaranteed that body bags and wailing family members are important parts of most story?

Kiplinger Deputy Director Kevin Z. Smith speaks to an audience in Jamaica about the ethics of covering tragedy.

I spent four days in Jamaica at the request of the U.S. Department of State and the Jamaican Embassy to talk about the ethics of reporting on grief and tragedy. Admittedly, I’d never heard the term grief porn, but I understood immediately what it meant.

What I didn’t understand was why it was so prevalent in the Jamaican press. In America, we’ve come (for the most part) to understand that graphic images and salacious details of murder and mayhem serve little public good. It’s usually viewed as sensationalism.